Synchronized Scheduling Approach of Ethylene Plant Production and Naphtha Oil Inventory Management

Ethylene production process and the feedstock management are the critical activities in an olefin plant. Better analysis of these two problems gives rise to better use of the plant feeding material and enhanced production capabilities. It is important to ensure the feeding material loaded and unloaded continuously and consistently from upstream to downstream in case of any insufficient supply or increased production burden. Besides, considering the changing yield characteristic of the furnace cracking operation and the naphtha blending constraints, how to incorporate the real world operational characteristics into the integrated full space problem from upstream to downstream and improve its economic performance in the strategic level is quite significant. Facing this challenge, this paper develops a novel synchronized decision-supporting framework for the long-term planning and scheduling problem of an ethylene plant by simultaneously considering the upstream naphtha inventory management and the downstream ethylene furnace operation with a subcooperative model, which also incorporate more logistic and operational characteristics of the subproblems in practice. Moreover, the solution performance of both two subproblems is enhanced by the new solving approach. The resulting framework is shown to be robust and seamlessly integrated. The efficacy and the economic potential of this proposed integration framework are illustrated through a comprehensive case study from the real world ethylene plant